Rice Paper Demo Paintings

I made these two paintings this week to use as demo pieces on the ExperimentalAcrylics list. In order to give each other ideas to keep the creativity flowing we have been volunteering to put a demo or challenge on the list each week. I volunteered to do a rice paper overlays demo this week since that's something I use fairly frequently and therefore have some knowledge of. I used two of the 4"x6" pieces that I cut from the paint along painting that I overworked as the bases for these paintings.

The purple one was created by adhering plain white rice paper to the background painting with matte gel medium and letting it dry. Then I added fine pumice gel to some areas with a palette knife and let that dry. Finally, I went over the entire painting with several washes of violet, blue lake, viridian and a touch of crimson and then blotted a few spots to create the lighter areas.

For the other painting I used a spiral patterned "lace" paper instead of the plain rice paper I usually use. After it was dry I went over it with several washes in the same color palette as the first painting just much more thinned out. I let it sit for a few minutes then blotted the entire painting to lighten the colors even more. I then went over it with a thicker wash of gold, which I let run pretty much wherever it wished, and then I spattered and dabbed in a bronze colored paint straight from the tube. The wrinkled areas were created almost as an afterthought. Before the painting was dry I remembered using the microwave to quick-dry some ATCs a while back and having the paint bubble up. I liked the effect so I decided to pop this one in the microwave just to see what would happen. The places that were still wet bubbled up nicely so I pulled it out and quickly pushed the bubbles down to create the wrinkled effect. This painting is actually more textural in real life, and the purple one is a bit darker "in person". These are probably destined for a swap in the near future, but I liked both of them enough to briefly consider keeping them.